


Spider

by cybergirl614



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Denial, Friendship, Pre-Slash, Set Post-S8, Spoilers, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-20 00:37:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19366750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cybergirl614/pseuds/cybergirl614
Summary: Hand of the King Tyrion Lannister is stirred from his sleep late in the night by a familiar voice, a voice he should not be able to hear...





	Spider

**Author's Note:**

> OK so, to reiterate a tad, there are HUGE SPOILERS for Season 8. You've been warned. Now, enjoy.

The Hand of the King rolled over, pulling the duvet over his head. Even though it was coming towards a reluctant Spring now, he would prefer the sweat of being under a heavy down covering than continuing to listen to what the voices in his sleep kept telling him. 

And telling him.

“I told you so.” Hearing this, the last Lannister groaned, reaching a hand out from under the duvet to grab a pillow, which he smashed over his face, not minding at the moment the possibility of being smothered, provided it blocked the damned voice. 

“I told you so!” A dulcet voice kept sing-songing in his ear. 

“Oh, seven Hells!” Tyrion shouted, ripping away his impromptu fortifications to sit up in bed. He moved so quickly he hit is head on a mahogany scroll of his bedframe, but the curses he was about to hurl froze in his throat. 

 

He grasped the back of his skull where he had hit it upon the bedpost, clutching at it and his hair with such reckless abandon he was at risk of pulling it out. 

There, in the seat at his desk, sat a glowing figure in orange robes, pale skin and bald head almost yellow as if he was bathed in candlelight. The figure laughed, smirking slightly. 

“My dear friend, has it ever occurred to you that you could have spared us all great pain and bloodshed, had you only listened to me sooner?”

“Seven bloody hells…” Tyrion whispered, seeing the figure speak. 

“Come now, is that any way to treat an old friend and ally?” The figure now moved closer. 

“I don’t know who you are or what you are. I want nothing to do with you. Nothing—” he scrambled back across his rather oversized bed, throwing a pillow at the spectre in front of him.

He nearly vomited when he saw the figure catch the pillow he’d tossed, setting it on the bed as he fixed the mussed corner. Tyrion was shaking now. 

“You are a vision, you must be nothing to fear for me—it’s merely the cognac—or perhaps the mushrooms in the soup, I should see the Maester---but you most certainly are not—” Tyrion spoke, voice trembling as the spectre’s words overlapped his own.

“—Oh, my friend, but I am—"

 

“—Varys.” They said at once.

Tyrion jumped off the bed as if he could hide by crouching down behind the other side. 

“Tyrion, you know you can’t elude me. No one in Westeros or Esos could, why should you now?” 

Sighing, he stood shakily. 

“Fine. What is it you want? You spectre, or phantom, a fascimilie? Whatever you are, come speak your piece, but I hold no illusions, you are not my friend.” 

“I’ve told you, Tyrion, I’m only who I appear to be. No less, and no more.” 

“Fine, if you were Varys, which I do not believe you to be Varys, then what do you want?”

 

“Oh, well, forgive my, ah, earlier behavior. It is easiest on the way back to keep repeating something related to one’s mission.” The spectre almost appeared to redden about the face for a few moments.

“And your mission is to tell me that you told me so. How original. How…amateur. If you were really the man I’d known, you would never have said so, and you certainly wouldn’t have come all the way back from the underworld to tell me this.” Tyrion turned away coldly, his arms crossed.

 

“Well now, I am the same person, in a sense, but I’ve been through much more than I had alive. Passing through the fire changes a man.” The Spider’s eyes nearly twinkled as he spoke, though his forehead wrinkled with sincerity. 

 

“Do you think I don’t know it? I watched her, my Queen, burn you alive on the sands of Dragonstorm! I watched as widows and children screamed as she burned the city alive! I was to be executed, and yet the new King saw fit to pardon me. He’s very well sentenced me to life. Many nights I envy you. But a moment’s agony, then nothing. But me? I must live with it every sorry moment of my life!” Tyrion was nearly sobbing now, shrinking away as he realized Varys was moving towards him.

He couldn’t shrink away fast enough sitting on his bed compared to the man walking towards him. He cringed as the spectre reached for his hand. 

“Don’t you touch me, foul creature! Get away from me—” 

“Tyrion. Please, listen to me, I can see I’ve rather upset you, for which I suppose I should apologize. But we both know that has never been my style. I wanted to say, I’ve been rather impressed with you as of late. You managed from a place of illegitimacy to induce the heads of Houses to choose a new King, one whom thus far I am pleased to say is just and fair, and shall bear no heirs. While my efforts with Danerys may not have ended the way I had hoped, it seems the Basilisk’s blood may not have been so badly misplaced after all.” 

 

“Basilisk’s blood? You tried to poison her!” 

“Indeed I did. For a Hand of the King it seems you know your way around a Maester’s chest of poisons nearly as well as I. I did not believe she had ingested any, per my little bird’s observations at least. I do not know what occurred immediately preceeding or following my untimely demise, however.” Varys mused. 

“I am afraid I do not know either,” Tyrion said pointedly, sighing. “Though as pale and thin as she had grown I doubt she ate much at all for the last weeks of her life. Tell me, would but a bite or two of a meal poisoned with this have driven her as violently mad as she went?”

“Likely not. Unless it was contained in a small cup of soup or wine, it would permeate the entire dish. She would have required several bites to feel the true effects.” The orange-robed man said.

“Then I suppose we have our answer. She was not induced by your poison to kill you, or the rest. Although knowing this, you rather deserved it. You always were a spider, striking with poison to the last.” Tyrion laughed drily. 

“Yes, well. I suppose the way I’m haunting you now earns me a few such smart remarks.” Varys spoke mildly. 

He looked back at Tyrion, who appeared lost deep in thought. “But, tell me, could the impact of such a poison upon someone for whom, as you said, madness is but a flip of the Gods’ coin, be multiplied many-fold, even if she did not partake but a small amount? Perhaps, under the stress of battle, succumb to its effects, or perhaps the effects of her foul inheritance?” 

 

“Why it should be possible I suppose, in someone of such an unstable constitution as hers. But even the madness of unbridled rage and bloodlust aside, do you not acknowledge the deadly nature of her venom? Suspicion, entitlement and desperation are together a more fatal venom than even that of the Basilisk.”

 

Tyrion nodded, sighing.  
“Why did you come here, to tell me all this? Or are you here to goad, a ghost come to taunt the survivors of a war? What do you want?” His voice turned cold, rising in a bitter shout.

 

“As I said before, my friend, I came to tell you that you have done well. I only wish I might have lived to see this day, of Westeros under a just King. Goodbye, my friend. Until we meet again.” Varys said, reaching for Tyrion’s hand. He didn’t snatch away quickly enough, and Varys lowered his lips to it, kissing his knuckles. 

 

“How could you? Spider!” he bellowed as Varys walked away out his chamber doors, footsteps disappearing into the hallway. 

Tyrion clenched the hand Varys had kissed, staring at it as his face grew hot and tears began to form in his eyes as he ran through his chamber doors, searching for the spectre of his late friend. 

Instead, panic surged within him as guards came running.

“Tyrion! Sir, I was alarmed upon first hearing shouts from your chambers. What happened?” It was Ser Brienne, in her nightclothes, no less, gripping her unsheathed sword. 

Tyrion felt his face grow hotter still, but was grateful that in the darkness of flickering torchlight, it would not be visible. He sighed, shaking his head. 

“It was nothing, merely a bad dream. I—got up to get some air.” He pressed his eyes shut, trying to forget what he had seen, what had just happened. He wanted to believe he had imagined it.

“My Lord. I shall leave you to your ablutions.” Brienne nodded, and walked away. 

 

As she turned away, Tyrion stalked back to his chambers, only to sit on the bed, frowning. He was taken aback when tears began to fall. He did not know rightly why, and hated it as grown men, he believed, did not cry. Surely Lannisters never cried. Then again, he had never been much of a Lannister, and that was probably the only reason he was still alive. He didn’t know what to make of the revelations; why would a ghost come back just to tell him it was proud? Why would a ghost kiss his hand? And why, on earth, did any of this matter so deeply to him? 

He sighed and decided to sit on the balcony with some more cognac to greet the dawn, which would be upon him in some hours. In the morning, he’d speak to the Maester about the mushrooms that had been in Supper.


End file.
